Intuition is something fuzzy and abstract, right? Science should be clear, solid, and tangible … right?
These two seemingly inimical “ways of knowing” could, nonetheless, mingle well. And Dr. William H. Kautz thinks the future of science counts on it.
Dr. Kautz received his Doctor of Science (Sc.D.) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1951, and conducted research in computer science at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) International for 34 years, with additional work in geophysics, health, chemistry, and the social sciences. In 1977, he founded the Center for Applied Intuition, a San Francisco organization that conducts research on the nature of intuition and its application in several fields of science.
“Science is going through the birth throes now of trying to find a way to incorporate the mind without [incorporating the mind],” Dr. Kautz said, laughing at the paradox. “It’s trying to explore the subjective domain by objective means.”
Crisis in Science, Need for Change
There are many indications that the mind (subjectivity) plays an important role in material science experiments (objective events). The emergence of quantum mechanics has shown that our conscious acts of measurement have physical impacts on what is being measured. Quantum mechanics has also shown us that something is fundamentally amiss in our scientific perspective overall.
In 1999, Brian Greene wrote in his Pulitzer Prize-nominated book “The Elegant Universe”: “As they are both currently formulated, general relativity and quantum mechanics cannot both be right. The two theories underlying the tremendous progress of physics during the last hundred years—progress that has explained the expansion of the heavens and the fundamental structure of matter—are mutually incompatible.”
